


Everyone's But His

by bramblePatch



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Backstory, Black Romance, F/M, Flarp, Lusii, Pale Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblePatch/pseuds/bramblePatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Eridan Ampora navigates that troll disease called friendship, and stumbles into a few quadrants along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Deep

The first time he sees her, it takes a moment to decipher exactly what it is he's seeing. She's floundering near the shore, in water so shallow that she keeps breaking the surface - that's how he spotted her, actually, flying over with his lusus - and she's jabbing a double-ended trident, over and over, at something large and dark and crustacean. The creature is clearly wounded but still has a good deal of fight in it, and at first he thinks that it must have been successful in landing at least a few wounds on the troll girl. He nudges his lusus's side in a request to dip nearer the surface of the water, and is surprised to realize that the faint magenta tint in the water isn't blood, but tears. The girl - highest-blooded troll he's ever encountered, a clear step up the hemospectrum further than he is - is _crying_ , great glubbing sobs, as she fights the monstrous crab.

He's not sure why - not even really aware of the action until the harpoon gun is brought to bear and his finger is on the trigger - but Eridan takes careful aim and sends a barbed spike of iron deep into the tiny brain of the creature. The girl looks up slowly, bobbing with her head and shoulders out of the water, and scrubs the tears from her eyes with the back of one hand. She looks from his scowling face to the weapon in his hand and back again, wide-eyed.

"T'at was my kill," she says, an edge of cautious resentment in her voice. "I need it."

He scowls, laying the harpoon gun across his lap in a motion that would have been a bit less awkward if it hadn't still been attached to the broad-shelled carcass in the water. "I don't wwant it," he says, in what he hopes is a dismissive tone. It's true, really, he's not fond of crab and has plenty of food at home for both himself and his lusus.

If anything, her eyes grow wider still, and for a long moment she seems to be at a loss for words. "Really?"

"Take it. And use somethin' sharper if you're gonna be goin' after something with such a thick shell, wwill ya?" He has no idea why he's giving her advice, girl who can't hunt well enough to keep herself and her lusus fed won't last long anyway, royalty or no. But there was something almost charming about her desperation, and taking two minutes out of his evening to give her a hand won't hurt anything. Maybe, if by some miracle she manages to survive the next few sweeps, she'd be a valuable ally. Besides, she'd be kind of cute, when her eyes weren't all magenta-rimmed and puffy from crying and her hair wasn't plastered flat against half her face.

"Um, t'anks," she says, and sets to work cutting his harpoon free before wrapping the giant crab in a net. He reloads his gun and brings his lusus around to leave, but is stopped by her voice. "I'm Feferi. Feferi Peixes."

"Eridan Ampora," he replies, glancing over his shoulder, and then he's flying off in the direction of home.

 

He sees her again, several times - coming across her more or less by accident at first, the way he originally had, but soon he learns her movements and he makes a point of checking in with her every few nights. Feferi is genuinely good company, and she warms to him quickly; he wonders if she's got this ridiculous sense of trust with every troll she meets or if it's just that he keeps helping her. Because he does help her, showing her how to hunt and trap the bigger and softer creatures in the ocean (although she draws the line at anything with tentacles). It's not just because he enjoys being around her, he tells himself. She's very high ranking, after all, and it's no bad thing to have allies among the other sea-dwellers, especially with how unreliable the higher land-dwellers can be. (He doesn't acknowledge that this hinges on her surviving to adulthood. That still seems unlikely, and he doesn't want to think about that.)

And Eridan knows about how conniving blue-bloods can be; he has begun playing Flarp and within a few weeks there's a land-dwelling girl practically camped on his instant messanger program, teasing and jabbing and generally doing her best to antagonize him. Finally he snaps at her, demands what the hell is her problem, and she weaves some rambling story of pirates and ancestors and true hate that he doesn't really follow. At the most, he figures he maybe feels a little irritated by her manner and the way that she replaces letters with the number eight seemingly at random, but it's kind of flattering to have someone expressing that kind of dark feelings toward him, so he figures he'll give it a whirl. Besides, the girl - she introduces herself as Marquise Mindfang, and he doesn't yet care enough to get her real name out of her - may be crazy, but her intel is good, and she's willing to share with him so long as he plays along and lets her call him Dualscar.

Which, really, is a much more badass Flarp name than any he'd been able to come up with, so he doesn't have any real objection.

As they play together, he sees again and again the way that she takes a special glee in tearing down her opponents, and he can't help notice that no one she defeats ever shows up looking for a rematch. It's not until she makes an off-hand remark about how her spidermom's not going to feed herself that he catches on, and it seems all the more prudent to stay on her good side. Her bad side? He's not really sure what the correct terminology is, considering their black flirtation, but whichever side means she's not going to start eying him as lusus food.

Thinking about lusus food makes him realize that he hasn't seen Feferi in a while, though, and he swings past where he knows her hive is as he comes home from a successful Flarp session. He circles a few times, and almost convinces himself that she's not at home or doesn't want to talk to him - probably the latter; not wanting to talk to Eridan seems to be something an awful lot of trolls have in common, although the thought of Feferi joining their ranks feels unexpectedly like a kick in the guts.

Then she shows up, eyes blazing as she breaks the surface. She's holding one of her better tridents, defensive, and he can see in the way that she holds it, she's favoring her left arm. No wonder, with the long, shallow gash that's scabbing purple from her shoulder nearly halfway to her elbow.

"Fef," he says in dumb surprise.

"Where _were_ you?" she demands, punctuating her words with a small jab of the trident. "It's been more than a week! I was worried, and I 'ad trouble 'unting wit'out your 'elp, and I t'ink she's getting 'ungry down there and I didn't know what to _do_!" Her voice cracks a little on that last, and Eridan sighs and adjusts his glasses.

"I can't feed her forewer, you know," he says, but as he does it he's reaching back and cutting loose the carcass of the lusus of Team Scallywag's latest victim. He'd kind of considered skinning it for display in his hive or something, but Feferi looks like she's about to start crying again, so he lets the body of the snow-white winged snake slide off from where he'd secured it behind his saddle. It slips into the water with surprisingly little splash, and she dives under to retrieve it before it can sink out of sight and it becomes necessary to hunt for it again.

When she resurfaces with the ends of her net balled in one fist, she looks calmer, although she still fixes him with a mistrustful eye. "You can't disappear like t'at again, Eridan. I can only just keep 'er quiet by myself."

It's not that Eridan doesn't feel bad about her plight - she's a nice girl and he's pretty sure he's developing some sort of reddish feelings for her, although he figures it's best to take it slow because he'd really rather only be incredibly confused by where he stands in one quadrant at a time and he's already got that weird historical reenactment black thing with Mindfang. But Feferi really should be swimming under her own power in this, and it's not like he wants to build his schedule around feeding someone else's lusus. "Look, I'we newer ewen met your lusus," he points out. "Wwhat's the big deal? Can't she miss a meal or two?"

Feferi's eyes widen, then narrow, and she beckons him down. "Come on, t'en, I'll introduce you," she says, and ducks under the water, swimming away. Eridan hesitates a moment before following, clinging tight along his own lusus's neck as they dive beneath the water in pursuit of the small dark figure in brightly-colored clothes.

He can see the towering edifice of her hive not far off, but to his surprise that's not where they're headed. Instead, she leads him down a wide trench that cuts across the submarine plain, until the water presses in uncomfortably on his eyes and gills and makes it hard to catch his breath. His lusus slows abruptly, refusing to go any deeper, and Eridan dismounts to follow the girl.

As they near the bottom of the trench, Eridan almost can't process what he sees, a vast shape of writhing pale tentacles stretching back from a huge serrated beak. And yet, as Feferi opens the net and one giant tentacle reaches out delicately to take the offered carcass, Eridan finds the name of the creature coming almost unbidden to him. "Gl'bgolyb. Your fuckin' lusus is _Gl'bgolyb_?"

Feferi looks up at him, her face almost lost in the gloom, and grins. "She's a big responsibility, but she's wort' it," she replies, resting a fond hand on the nearest tentacle. At this depth, her voice sounds odd, almost flat. "Can you 'elp? Please, Eridan?"

Before he can answer, one great tendril reaches out and coils almost lazily around Eridan. He panics breifly, trying to get loose, before a whisper so vast that it seems to strain the edges of his mind fills his ears and makes him forget everything else.

 _you  
i know  
i know your weapon taste on my food weapon not held by my feferi but it fells the foods she brings me and it is good_

 _you care  
about her you care don't you i know you do she talks about you  
she worries she doesn't want to carry the burden alone she doesn't have to does she  
give her hope  
give her hope prince of hope_

"Wwhoa," he says, as the tentacle and the voice fall away, and Feferi beams at him.

"Did she talk to you? She doesn't do t'at a lot, not wit' people who aren't me," she says. Eridan nods cautiously, and has to wonder whether that's because of some shyness on the Carbuncle of the Deep's part or simply because very few trolls would come down here of their own volition.

"I'll... I'll help," he promises. "I'll help you get food for her." Well, Gl'bgolyb seemed satisfied with the lusus he'd brought; he can get more where that came from, at the very least. And it's not like he doesn't enjoy hunting with Feferi from time to time.

The whole "impending threat to trollkind" thing is really just the icing on the cake. The terrifying, terrifying icing.

Feferi hugs him, so suddenly that she knocks him askew and they hang at an awkward angle in the water for a moment, her face buried in his scarf. Then she turns to hug the nearest tentacle with a quick, "I'll be back soon, Mom," and she leads him up, out of the cold and the pressure and the dark. His lusus is waiting for him, skittish with worry, and he takes a moment to sooth the seahorse's nerves and to be very glad that he's not a giant monster of death.

They break the surface. Eridan turns to go, and hesitates as Feferi calls his name. Looking back, he sees her, bobbing in the water with her hands outstretched in front of her - forefingers and thumbs pressed against each other, forming a diamond shape. Heh. So that's how it's going to be? Eridan can live with that. He returns the sign, nearly slipping out of the saddle as he does so, and hurries off before she can see the violet blush that's spreading across his cheeks.


	2. All Fun and Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vriska is completely shithive maggots. But we knew that already, didn't we?

He's really not sure whether he actually enjoys Flarping with Mindfang. He's not sure whether he should enjoy it. After all, she still won't shut up about how their kismesisship is meant to be, her messages all laced with spades and winking eight-eyed smileys, and it annoys the glub out of him. What does it mean, when he hates someone for wanting him to hate them? Is that how blackrom is supposed to work? It almost feels like he's accommodating her. (Of course he is; she's the one who decided they should hate each other and he didn't really care one way or the other and he knows it, but it still feels uncomfortably like he's doing something _nice_ for his caliginous interest.)

Eridan can't deny, though, that she is an excellent gamer, and the best partner he's found. She's clearly been playing for much longer than he has, and knows the ins and outs of all the modes of play that Flarp offers. All of them. The traditional four-troll parallel quest, where she seems to actually enjoy clouding, leading their opponents to their doom while he picks apart the challenges posed by the other team's clouder. Tag team PvP, which admittedly makes him a little nervous because even that pair of six-sided dice she uses has a few attacks that could easily backlash on her or on her ally, and she keeps talking about getting a better set, which he can only assume means a more dangerous and unpredictable one. The various pre-programmed side quests that she finds for them to play, or orchestrates based on something in that grubby journal that she pulls everything from.

And he gets a real thrill out of Flarping _against_ her, although they do that less often if only because going toe-to-toe with Mindfang doesn't produce much in the way of food for either her lusus or Feferi's. A night of Flarping against someone that she's not willing to kill is, he knows, generally followed by a day of sitting sleepless in her hive wondering if her lusus is going to get impatient and go after her or her neighbor. And a night of Flarping against someone whose lusus is out of his reach is perhaps a little less personally threatening to Eridan, but it still makes him nervous to be out all evening and not be able to bring anything back to offer Gl'bgolyb.

So he figures that overall, he's got a pretty good black fling going, and honestly, how many four-and-a-half sweep olds have not one but two quadrants filled already?

She notices, of course, that he always makes a point of taking down the lusus of whatever poor sap accepts their challenges, but although she ribs him about it, he's hesitant to explain why. Targeting an opponent's lusus is generally considered to be in rather bad taste, and as the weeks go on, his excuses sound less and less convincing, even to him.

"Fucker wwas goin' to help out his kid, a course I had to kill it," he says, standing over the body of a three-headed hound.

"Right, because she _totally_ wwoulda giwen up if I hadn'ta demoralized her by killin' her lusus," he says, as Mindfang gives him a skeptical look while mentally manhandling a sobbing captive.

"I had a bad experiance with alligators wwhen I wwas little," he says, and hates the way she bites back a laugh.

"It startled me."

"It was lookin' at me funny."

And finally, after a long game that left him sore and out of sorts and just barely produced enough loot to make it worth their while (not that Eridan cares particularly for loot, that's really more Mindfang's thing, but he's not going to just leave it lying around either) he can't think of a glib excuse and the words just kind of slip out on their own. "You ain't the only one wwith a fuckin lusus to feed, you know."

She turns slowly, one hand still held at her temple because she's grown tired of listening to this particular defeated enemy plead and it takes a little more work to still his tongue, and fixes Eridan with a skeptical look. "What are you talking about, Duaaaaaaaalscar? I've seen your lusus, and I know he eats kelp. Kelp and little fishes! Not big dinobeasts like this."

Eridan gulps, but it's too late to take back his words; Mindfang would never let this go and besides it'd be humiliating to try and take it back in front of an enemy, even an enemy who will very soon be devoured by a giant spider. So he tries to play it cool and answers, "My moirail's lusus, stupid."

It occurs to him that this is the first time he's referred to Feferi as his moirail while talking to someone else.

"Your _moirail,_ " she says, and though she covers it quickly, for a moment Mindfang looks alarmed. Her eyes narrow. "I didn't know you had a moirail."

And, he realizes, there's the unspoken part, too - _Dualscar never had a moirail._ She's not quite crazy enough to say it out loud, but he knows she's thinking it, as clearly as if he were the one with the mental powers so out of place in the upper half of the hemospectrum. She's told him about the troll she believes to be his ancestor, often and at length and generally in less than flattering terms, and he's convinced by now that this is more than a game to her.

"Wwell, I do. And her lusus makes Spidermom look like a cuddleplush," he snaps.

A slow smile crosses Mindfang's face. "Do I get to meeeeeeeet her?" she drawls.

Eridan frowns, goes to cross his arms over his chest and finds that they're already there. "No, you don't. A course not. Wwhat, do you think I'm stupid?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demands.

"Mindfang, you'we made it pretty fuckin' clear that you're downright _inky_ for me. There's no way I'm lettin' you near my moirail."

She gasps, one hand going to her mouth in a theatrical show of shock that makes him nervous because when Mindfang starts playacting like that, it's a good sign there's something going on behind those freaky eyes of hers. "Dualscar, I'm wounded! You think I'd stoop to hurting your moirail just to get to you? Wherever would you get that idea?"

"I don't know, from the fact that you're a huge bitch?" he retorts, trussing up the lusus carcass in preparation of hauling it away.

Mindfang smirks. "Hate you too," she says, sweet and volatile as mind honey.

He rolls his eyes and ignores her.

 

Eridan kicks himself for not threatening her more when, a few nights later while wandering along the shore near his hive, he comes across both girls, along with a third troll who he feels he should know but can't quite place. Feferi is lounging in a large tide pool, with Mindfang perched primly on the rocks next to her and the other guy sprawling full-length on the rocky outcropping, trailing his fingers through the water.

"Whoa, the little tentacley motherfuckers make my fingers all tingly," the third troll is saying, staring down into the pool with rapt fascination. There's a half-full bottle of something bright and fruity balanced on the algae-encrusted rock next to him and Eridan suddenly remembers who he is; that indigo-blooded idiot who lives in the hive down the beach and who's always leaving his garbage all over the place.

Feferi giggles, pushing off from the side of the pool and gliding over to where the land-dweller is looking down into the water. "T'ey're called anemones, Gamzee," she says. Mindfang laughs, her harsh cackle seeming out of place in the little tableau.

Eridan approaches them, coming up behind Feferi and casting a dark shadow with two gibbous moons at his back. They look up at him with three variations on the theme of "smile" - cheerful beam, satisfied smirk, and vacant grin - and he responds with a glare. None of them seem impressed, and Eridan feels a bit like a posturing idiot.

"'i there, Eridan!" Fefiri chirps, and he ignores her, instead rounding on Mindfang.

"I thought I fuckin' told you to stay the hell awway from her," he snarls, and Mindfang has at least the good grace to look alarmed.

She laughs, but it is small and weak and sounds forced and not at all like her usual celebration of being better than everyone. "Why, Dualscar, I didn't think you were that much of the jealous type."

"Shut up for once in your miserable airbreathin' life," he snaps.

"You know, literally everyone here is breathing air right now," she points out, her voice regaining a bit of it's usual superiority.

"Did you think I wwas kiddin'? You are a fuckin' dangerous bitch and I meant it wwhen I said I don't wwant you around her!"

He's not sure how it happens - he's not aware of reaching for his specibus - but suddenly there's a rifle in his hand and just as quickly there's a rifle in her face and she's terrified again and it's wonderful. Eridan thinks this must be what kismesisship is supposed to be, which is in it's own way terrible because he's not trying for that right now. He's honestly trying to scare her off and he's got the awful feeling that she'll be able to sense that if she keeps pushing him, he won't be able to pull the trigger because that would mean never seeing her angry or scared or defiant again.

And then there's a thin, cool hand on his arm, a hand with a wrist looped with colorful bits of cord. "Eridan, please calm down," Feferi says, pulling the gun down and away from the other girl, and Eridan almost shrugs her off. He goes along with it, though, with her bright, slightly clipped voice in his ears - "We were just 'anging out, she wasn't 'urting anyt'ing. We can go now if you want, Eridan."

He calms down slowly, by force of will, the gun slipping back into the rifleKind card. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and nods. "Ok, wwhatewer, fine," he mutters, as her hand shifts down and into his, giving his fingers an encouraging squeeze. He glances back at Mindfang, glaring. "But you better wwatch it, bitch," he adds, and for good measure looks over at the idiot in the clown makeup and snaps, "and you better get all your bottles and pie-tins and shit off the beach before I kick your ass!"

Feferi tugs at his hand, leading him away over the tide-pool rocks and down onto the beach, and they walk away, shin-deep in the lapping waves. She giggles as something small and shrimp-like wiggles away under her foot, and Eridan smiles in spite of himself.


End file.
